


would have stayed if you’d had asked

by Arazsya



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Arguments, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Rating and tags subject to change, Restraints
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: Edward has grown used to uncomfortable nights.Whumptober 2020 Day 1: Waking Up Restrained
Relationships: Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	would have stayed if you’d had asked

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Shower Day" by The Amazing Devil

Edward has grown used to uncomfortable nights. Out questing with Tjelvar, he has them more often than not, whether it’s another lumpy tavern mattress or a thin bedroll settled in the least stony bit of wilderness they could find. He’s grown to appreciate them, in their own way – he can feel every moment, waking or sleeping, how far he is from the poisoned luxury he’d grown up in. With each sharp chill or cramped knee, he breathes in the distance from his family’s court-standard manners and violent disapprovals and lets it flood him like mountain air.

Maybe that’s why it takes so long for the dull ache in his arm to worm its way deep enough into his skull to tell him that something’s wrong. It’s at the wrong angle, pulled up over his head a little too far, leaving numbness coiling in his stiffening fingers.

He tries to move it, and it doesn’t go.

Opening his eyes, he finds the room far darker than it should be – someone’s hung a coat over the window, blotting out most of the light. A good idea, he’s sure, except it’s not one they’d had the previous night; he remembers watching Tjelvar, able to pick out every angle of his stiff shoulders in the faint glow from the street lamp outside.

From the brightness spilling through around the curtain now, he’s sure dawn was hours ago. He should have woken up for morning prayers, like he does every morning, leaving Tjelvar dozing and letting the first glimmering of sunshine warm his skin, but the dark must have confused his internal clock. 

The place in the bed beside him is cold, the sheets and blankets pulled neat and tucked carefully in around him. Instead of Tjelvar’s tense, frustrated shape, there’s just a single folded over piece of paper, resting against the pillow.

Edward goes to grope towards it, but his arm still won’t cross the distance. He excavates the other from underneath a fold of quilt, and reaches, glances around the room as he does so in search of Tjelvar. There’s nothing, no other shape, and he swallows hard, quashes the whispering in his brain insisting that after their argument the previous night, Tjelvar wouldn’t want him around anymore, had probably just left, and he’d never see him again. Tjelvar’s not like that. If he hadn’t abandoned Edward in the Alps, he’s not going to do it here.

_Edward_ , the note says – the hand’s smooth, and Edward tries to take it as a good sign. Tjelvar’s writing always shapes itself to mood, his furious postal exchanges with Carter forever jagged, while funding requests for universities end up small and neat. _I’m sorry to have to do this to you, and for everything that I said last night. I know how important the Church is to you, and I should have known better than to ask you to go against their teachings. All the same, I hope you understand that I can’t leave the sword in Atherton’s possession. I hope I’ll see you again soon – I should be back before they arrive, but if not please tell the housekeeping staff that the key is on the bedside cabinet. My fondest wishes as ever, and hopes that you might forgive me, Tjelvar_.

A soft groan peels itself from the back of Edward’s throat, and he drops the paper back down onto the pillow. It slides slowly down into the blankets and settles there. He glares at it, eyes hot and stinging, and curses himself.

He’d not been prepared for the argument. Too busy wondering why it always was that the inns never had enough twin rooms left, if they’d consider just doing away with the concept of the double bed altogether and just push two singles together whenever they were needed, so that he wouldn’t have to lie awake too long worrying that he’d somehow give himself away from the closeness. Tjelvar had suggested breaking into Atherton’s vault, and Edward had panicked and come down on the idea like a guillotine.

It’s just, Friedrich had always told him that he shouldn’t do evil to stop evil, or it made them no better than the Church of Mars. Theft is wrong, breaking into people’s property is wrong, drugging guards is wrong. So he’d stood there, solid and immovable, and refused to let himself be swayed. Even regretting, he’s not sure what he would do differently, except wake up sooner and not let Tjelvar go without him.

Even if it’s evil. He’d damn his own soul a thousand times over if it meant he could save Tjelvar coming to harm, and if that makes him a bad paladin then Apollo may blind him and leave him stumbling through sunlight so hot that it sears the flesh from his bones, leaves him nothing but crackling fat and marrow.

Atherton’s dangerous, after all. Tjelvar had talked about the kinds of security that he’s likely to have – dogs, guards, the nastiest curses that mages in expensive robes could put together for him – the crimes he’d committed already, and he’d said that it’s a task he’s ill-suited for. He’s not as familiar with contemporary traps as he is with those from hundreds of years ago, isn’t a thief like Carter, would prefer to wait but there isn’t _time_ , because every second that Atherton has an artefact of the gods is a second too long.

He’s already been gone too long. Could be in trouble.

Edward lunges for the bedside cabinet on the far side. His outstretched fingers just manage to brush against the polished wood, but the glint of the key is still inches away that might as well be miles, and he can’t grip, can’t drag it close. Can’t even knock it over, though he’s sure that wouldn’t do any good, would just mean the housekeeping staff will have to search for it when they get here, and waste even more time. He tries to stretch, all the same, and just manages to jolt the bones in his secured arm.

Glancing around, Edward notes with no real surprise that he’s been secured to the bed frame with his own paladin’s cuffs. Something splinters in his throat, his vision blurring, as he notices that Tjelvar had tucked what looks like the cloth that he uses to clean his glasses around his wrist, to make sure that the metal won’t scrape against his skin.

More care than he deserves. And yet more proof, if ever he’d needed it, that Tjelvar isn’t evil. He knows that, had done even when Tjelvar had been snarling out his arguments with a harm that he hadn’t meant. He’s checked, checked and hates himself every time he does it because he should be sure anyway, be certain of the one he loves. And he is, he swears he is, but he can’t stop himself from waiting for a catch, waiting for the gods or whoever to decide that enough is enough and that Tjelvar will go bad like everything else.

Tjelvar, who could be dead now. And Edward, lying useless where he’s been left because he was too stupid to realise that Tjelvar might just go off on his own.

He grits his teeth and lunges again, more violently. Manages nothing more than dislodging the glasses cloth. He takes a deep breath, and starts to bellow at the top of his lungs for help.


End file.
